Guest blogger Rebecca Zook writes on how to find a good tutor when living overseas.

Trying to find a qualified tutor while living abroad can sometimes leave expat parents feeling lost. Whether you’re searching for a precalculus tutor in Beijing or a reading tutor in the UAE, here are some tips on how to find a good tutor while you’re abroad.

Ask your support network. Ask for recommendations from your kid’s teacher, guidance counselor, or school. Ask fellow expat parents for a referral. Try your local embassy or consulate. Send out a tweet, update your facebook status, and post a query on your local expat online message board. Someone you already know might know someone great!

Ask the internet. A lot of independent tutors have websites that include their contact info as well as information about their tutoring experience and philosophy. (Also, lots of tutors also post on craigslist, though markets outside of the US tend to have fewer listings than major US cities.) Look for tutors who put some thought and effort into their website or ad, and keep your eyes peeled for someone who you feel might click with your kid.

Look for individuals. Tutoring works best as a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Look for tutors who promote themselves as individuals, since they’ll have more invested in their work. If you choose to go through an agency, ones that post bios and pictures of their tutors are a better bet than most.

Consider online tutoring. Working with an online tutor from your country of origin can allow you to connect to a much wider selection of potential candidates. If you’re having trouble finding someone locally who is experienced and whose accent your kids can understand, consider working online with a tutor from back home. If you find an online tutor your kid likes, you can continue to work with them through multiple relocations or even after repatriating.

Make contact and ask questions. Once you get a list of potential tutors, call or email them. Ask about the tutor’s experience helping kids with a particular subject, grade level, learning style, or learning disability. You can also inquire about their methods, philosophy, credentials, references, and reasons they became a tutor.

Pay attention to how the interaction feels. Does the potential tutor listen to you carefully? Do they ask you good questions? Do they seem to have a sense of humor? Would you feel comfortable working with them one-on-one? Trust yourself.

Try out the tutor. Try the tutor out for one paid session to make sure they’re a good fit before making a final decision. Make sure your kid takes some recent work so they can go over the parts that are confusing. By the end of the initial meeting, you should have a clear sense of whether or not your kid wants to continue.

Things to look for: Does the tutor pay attention to whether or not the student understands? Do they adjust their approach if the student doesn’t understand? A good tutor will explain things different ways until they find the way that clicks for your kid.

Does your kid feel comfortable with the tutor? The more honest your kid can be about what they don’t understand, the more effective the tutoring will be.

Is the tutor helping? It may take several sessions before you start to see improvement in grades as a result of tutoring, but your kid should feel like they understand things at least a little bit better after the first session.

The bottom line: Trust your own instincts and feelings. Every tutor has their own style, and you want to find someone who works with your kid’s style. The best tutors not only know what they’re talking about and can help your kid understand it, but they’ll also help your kid feel good about the whole process.

Bio: Rebecca Zook is an American online female math tutor who has been helping students get math into their brains for seven years. She blogs about learning at Triangle Suitcase.

I did a brief presentation at the Families in Global Transition conference in Washington, DC, for internationally mobile families about taking special needs children overseas. These are my “top 5″ tips based on years of experience working with international families as an Independent Educational Consultant (IEC).

1. Do not expect that international schools will always offer services for children with learning disabilities. Furthermore, even though the school may be known as “the American school”,  American schools overseas do not have a federal mandate of IDEA to provide special education services like they would in the United States.

2. Many children with learning disabilities also need other wrap-around services, i.e. physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, that may or may not be available overseas. This must be investigated.

3. Those who offer services are often expats themselves – if you identify their services, they may not be there when you arrive, or may not stay in the foreign location for the entire time of your stay, or have openings for new students. Check before going.

4. Some families realize their children are struggling after they arrive. Sometimes this is due to transition and resiliency issues, so you want to give things time to settle down. However, it is also important to get these students a quality psycho-educational evaluation as early as possible. The younger a child is when his/her needs are identified, the more effective the intervention can be. Do not wait too long before getting help.

5. The most successful students are those whose parents are extremely well-informed and pro-active – researching options, finding resources, getting their kids help, and if no adequate resources are there at that location, then a boarding school that specializes in learning differences, or offers support to students with learning differences, may be a viable option.

Here are more articles on this topic, or go to http://www.rebeccagrappo.com/articles_blog.html.

Taking a Special Needs Child Overseas? What to Know Before You Go

Special Needs and Schooling Abroad

Feel free to contact  RNG International Educational Consultants if you have concerns about a young person in your life.

When I talk to students about college, we naturally talk about their future career plans and goals. And not surprisingly, many Third Culture Kids or international students in my practice who have had an international experience while growing up seek other international experiences as adults. I have other students, too, who have never been overseas but love the allure of an adventure abroad, and thus dream of doing “something international”.

Students crowd the table to talk to the interior architect

I was once that kid, too. I had stars in my eyes about doing “something international” when I grew up, though I really had no idea what it might be. My thoughts and dreams were limited to what I considered an international career – diplomacy. And I didn’t want to do that, really (but ended up marrying a diplomat, so things have a funny way of working out!). In my own journey, I did my undergraduate majors in International Studies and German, then went on to get my teaching credential, a graduate degree in education, taught overseas, then worked for the State Department, and now consider myself the luckiest person in the world to have my own international educational consulting practice. I’m definitely doing “something international” now!

What I wish young people knew is that diplomacy is not the only career out there for people who want to work overseas or have a profession doing “something international”.

Students worked the tables in the crowded gym

This point was brought home to me recently when I participated in the Career Fair at ABA Academy in Muscat, Oman. I had a very small role, manning a table for my friend and colleague, Marcie Frederickson, who is the high school counselor extraordinaire there. She asked if I would stand in for her as an international counselor, and answer a few questions about the profession as well as college. I had just arrived for a short visit in my former home of Oman, so was thrilled that I got to play any role at all.

What impressed me at the career fair was just how many different professions were represented in that room – and all were international careers. The students, who represented about 50 nationalities, were all eager to talk to the various professionals to find out more about “the world of work”.

In sum, here are the various professions represented at the fair. They included:

• Architect
• Bankers
• Creative art director
• Creative director of fashion design
• Business consultant
• Advertising executive
• Archeologist
• Environmental engineer
• Environmental health professional
• Family counselor/psychologist
• Marketing consultant
• Musician
• Trainer
• Attorney
• Hair stylist
• Nurse/midwife
• Doctor
• Physical therapist
• Surveyor
• Speech therapist
• Restaurant/hotel manager of major brand
• Soccer coach
• Magazine editor
• Yoga instructor
• Writer
• Veterinarian
• Teacher
• Mechanical engineer
• Technical director
• Health and safety project manager
• Geologist
• Chemical engineer
• Orthopedic surgeon
• Oil and gas logistics
• Telecommunications
• International educator and university advisor
• Interior architect
• Radio announcer/producer
• College advisor/US non-governmental organization
• University professor
• Hospitality industry instructor/trainer

As you can see, there are a huge range of options for international careers. And this is by no means a comprehensive list of all the potential careers. In my 30 years of experience living overseas, I have met a lot of people working globally, and the conclusion I have come to is this. People who work overseas have found their passion, love what they do, are really good at it, and thus are in high demand to bring much needed professional expertise to a country. If the country doesn’t need it, then there isn’t a need to import the professional.

Omanis were also present at the career fair

So my advice to students is this: follow your heart. Do what you love, be good at it, and maybe one day, you, too, will find yourself working on the international stage.